Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
T HROUGH THE SOGGY STREETS OF Seattle, Devine tracked buck-fifty Fred to a part of the city where the air was briny and humid; some of the buildings dark, grim, and ready for rehab; and the traffic and pedestrian flows occurring in bursts before receding like an outgoing tide.
Fred veered off and hurried his scuffed loafers up a set of worn and stained stone steps, disappearing through a peeling red door. Devine scooted after him and eyed the sign over the door: THE SAND BAR .
Well, that’s original.
He entered a large room filled with heat and humidity and clusters of bodies dancing, drinking, swaying, mingling, and some even crooning badly to the tunes piped overhead, probably from a Spotify account. The English pub-style bar was set against one wall. The parquet dance floor was in the middle; a wing to the right held the pinball, billiards, and foosball section of the offered entertainment. Boozed-up people were doing the age-old flirty ritual, while Devine was looking for Fred, who had disappeared into the sea of drunken groovers.
Devine spotted a back hall and headed down it. He figured Fred had spied the tail and had used this place to lose him. The back door emptied into an alley. On the right was a wall with trash cans stacked in front, so Devine turned left and picked up his pace.
A minute later Devine glanced back and saw that the two men who had followed him and Odom back to the hotel were once more tracking him.
He worked his way to the alley where the Gum Wall was located. It was so named because of all the brightly colored gum stuck to one wall by passersby. Some of the gum had been stretched out and now resembled miniature and colorful stalagmites.
He had been down this alley before on a previous trip, and knew that the paving stones underneath, combined with the high walls on either side, would resoundingly echo off any footsteps fore or aft. Within a few moments he picked up the sounds of two sets still behind him.
And staggering toward him out of the misty darkness were a man and a woman wrapped around each other in an embrace, and appearing to be five mojitos on the welcome side of paradise. Yet looks could be deceiving and so Devine wondered if he had bogies at six and twelve. He eased the Glock from its holster, but kept it hidden behind his jacket. His index finger slid within the vicinity of the trigger. He tensed as the couple grew nearer, but they didn’t even glance at him as they lurched by, devouring each other’s lips in the process.
Devine still had the other pair on his six, which meant he still had twin problems to solve.
He trekked down another side street and then stopped and turned around.
His hand on his gun, he waited.
The men cleared the turn and continued to walk casually toward him. They stopped and stared at him. And his gun, which Devine had now made clearly visible.
“You guys lost, or just going where I’m going?” he asked.
One was Black with a bald head. He was a brick wall, thick and muscular and an inch over Devine’s height. The other guy was six feet, white with massive amounts of blond hair and a soft, stocky build, with a gut that leaned over his belt. Devine immediately tagged them as Baldy and Big Hair because he somehow didn’t expect them to reveal their real names.
“Been following you, dude,” said Baldy, in a deep voice that matched his muscled bulk.
“Thanks for the heads-up. I never would have noticed otherwise. Care to tell me why?”
“Shit, you need that gun out?” said Big Hair, a nervous tic in his higher-pitched voice.
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“We just wanna talk. We ain’t here to hurt nobody, mister. I mean, damn.”
“So talk,” said Devine, keeping the gun right where it was.
“You watchin’ Betsy Odom,” said Big Hair.
“Am I?” Devine felt déjà vu all over again after his conversation with buck-fifty Fred.
“You and the federal chick,” chimed in Baldy.
“What interest do you have?”
“We knew Betsy’s parents. Know her, too,” said Big Hair.
“How?”
Baldy said, “Went to high school with Dwayne. Then he moved away somewheres, got married, and he come back here with Alice and Betsy. That’s when we hooked up again. Had some good times. Real good. Nice family.”
“And now they’re dead,” said Devine. “Any ideas on that?”
Baldy said, “What do they say killed ’em?”
“Wasn’t it in the papers?”
“We don’t read no papers, dude. I mean, shit,” said Big Hair, grinning. “Do we look like we get the Wall Street Journal or sumthin’?”
Devine hesitated but then decided it was worth it to maybe get some useful info in return. “Drug overdose.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Baldy.
“Why?”
“They ain’t use no drugs.”
Just like Betsy had said.
“How do you know?”
Baldy said, “They been back here years now. Seen a lot of ’em. Ain’t seen no drugs or shit like that. And if you’re usin’, it sure as hell gonna be at your place and on your skin, and in your eyes, and in your piss, in everythin’ you got.”
“And how would you know that?” said Devine.
Baldy held up one arm. “Zipper tracks down both arms.” He pointed to his nose. “And I blew this middle part here right out snortin’ coke. Can’t smell much no more, ’cept when my chef bro’ here uses too much bok choy or stinky-ass French cheese.”
Big Hair nodded and said, “Meth was my devil. Popped my colon a while back. Don’t recommend ever doin’ that, man. Serious as shit, no pun intended.”
Baldy said, “Point is we know when someone’s usin’ or ain’t usin’. And they ain’t usin’.”
“Police report says otherwise. And it also says Betsy used Narcan to try to bring them back. Apparently, they’d OD’d on fentanyl.”
Big Hair shook his head. “Did Betsy say she done that? Narcan, I mean?”
Once more Devine hesitated but then said, “No, she didn’t. She said the opposite.”
Big Hair looked triumphantly at Devine. “See? Told you.”
“So what do you think happened to them?”
Baldy eyed Devine warily. “Don’t know. But if the cops makin’ shit up? Then you got your own kind doin’ crap they shouldn’t be doin’.”
“ My kind?” said Devine.
“You a cop, ain’t you? Federal cop by the look of you.”
“You have experience with cops, federal and otherwise?”
“What you think?” said Baldy defiantly. “Or do I look like I gone to Harvard with a trust fund?”
“You have records?”
Baldy laid his large brown eyes on Devine. “Hard to get a real job when you can’t pass the pee test and you got you some priors. And you got to live somehow, someway. That’s all I’m sayin’ ’bout that.”
“What about Danny Glass? The Odoms ever talk about him?”
The men looked at each other with unease. Big Hair said, “We know ’bout him. Dwayne ain’t really care for the man. But Alice…”
“Alice what?”
“Alice ain’t exactly share that feelin’ with Dwayne.”
Devine was getting more info than he’d bargained for and decided to keep going. “I heard they came into some money. To buy a place to live and a car? That come from Glass?”
Baldy shrugged his big delts. “They never say and we ain’t never asked. But ain’t like they got a bunch of rich friends give ’em that kind of cash.”
“Where’s the house?”
“Kittitas County. East a’ here, out in the boonies, ’bout a two-and-a-half-hour drive or so.”
“Got an address? I’d like to go see it for myself.”
“Got a PO box but that ain’t help you none. But we can tell you how to get there.”
Big Hair gave him detailed directions, which Devine put into his phone’s notes app.
“Ain’t so easy to find after you get off the highway,” Baldy added. “Google sure ain’t gonna get you there. But you stick to what you was told and you find it.”
“Thanks. You know, Glass wants to gain guardianship of Betsy?”
“Well, mister, if I was you, I would stop that shit in its tracks,” said Big Hair.
“Any particular reason?”
“Why would a guy like that want a little girl ’round?”
“Well, he is her uncle and the only relative she has left.”
“I bet lots of rich-ass criminals got them nieces. How many want ’a have little girls live with ’em?” said Big Hair. “Seems sort ’a weird, ask me.”
“You ever met Glass?”
“No sir,” said Baldy. “But Dwayne tell us stuff. That Glass dude is messed up, for damn sure.”
“Did he ever visit the Odoms?”
“Not that they say,” replied Baldy.
“Care to tell me your names? I’d like to pass on your good wishes to Betsy.”
Big Hair said, “You just look after that girl, mister. She special all right. Smart as a whip. And she got her own mind, that’s for shit sure.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that.”
“Crappy deal in life, but her parents loved her, man,” said Baldy. “They just ain’t never figure out how to be… normal, I guess. Dwayne had him a big-ass heart, but that ’bout all that boy had. Ain’t never hold no job and rub two dimes together. He was always expectin’ somethin’ to drop in his lap and save his ass.”
“A dreamer,” added Big Hair.
“Well,” said Devine. “He got a nightmare instead. Thanks for the info. I’ll do what I can.”
The two men left him, and Devine circled back toward the bar where he’d lost track of Fred.
When he heard screams, Devine started to run.
Inside the bar he saw that the music had stopped and so had the partying mood. People were gathered around something on the dance floor. One woman turned to the side and threw up probably what amounted to every ounce of drink and morsel of food she’d had tonight.
He pushed his way through the crowd and to the object of all the attention.
Fred was lying on his back, his hands cupped over his stomach like he was hiding something there. The floor under him was covered in blood and Devine could see a trail of it going off toward the back hall, as though someone had dripped red paint the whole way.
Fred’s eyes opened and he saw Devine.
“Who did this to you?” said Devine, kneeling next to the man.
Fred said something garbled, and then seized Devine’s arm. His next words were clearer, but still made no sense to Devine. Then Fred’s eyes closed, his grip fell away, and the little man let out a long breath, which turned out to be his very last one.